“The one glaring daggers at Oak.” She grinned. “I guess he doesn’t like having competition for Talon’s attention.” She took another quick bite of food then added, “Don’t worry—he’s harmless. Just jealous.”
That put things into perspective. At the other end of the table, Talon let out a huge laugh, and the red-haired guy—Ivo—pulled his boots down off the table and grabbed his fork, feigning disinterest in the conversation. He stabbed at the last bit of food on his plate and shoved it into his mouth.
My eyes drifted back to Octavian. He and Talon were now bent close, speaking quietly with each other, though Talon’s bright eyes and wide smile suggested he was on the verge of rowdy laughter again. Everything about their body language suggested an ease and familiarity, as if they’d known each other their whole lives.
“Are yousureyou two aren’t lovers?” Ary asked.
I jumped, turning back to her. “I promise we aren’t, but—”
“I knew there’d be abut.” She clapped her hands together. “Youwantto be his lover but you aren’t yet, am I right?”
“I…I honestly don’t know where I stand,” I told her. Yes, she was a stranger, but it felt kind of nice to be able to talk to someone about this. I was really missing Esmer and Isaac right about now. “We’ve kissed, but…it’s complicated.”
“Why? Is there someone else?”
Maybe.And onbothsides, which made the situation even trickier. But I wasn’t about to confess to Ary that just last night I'd nearly lost my virginity to Octavian’s brother, of all people.
“Well, I see the way he keeps looking at you,” she said. “He wants you, trust me.”
I grabbed a piece of lumpy, sky-blue fruit, carefully ignoring her eyes. I could believe that Octavianwantedme—or at the very least, that his body reacted to mine the way mine reacted to his—but that didn’t negate the fact that he’d straight-up told me just this morning that he couldn’t give me his heart.
Ary apparently took my silence as a challenge, because she leaned closer, her big eyes gleaming.
“Don’t worry, Goldie,” she said. “Listen to me and I guarantee you’ll be in his arms by the end of tonight.”
30
The Legendary Hero of Therador
Iguaranteeyou’llbein his arms by the end of tonight.
Ary’s promise sent a little quiver through me, and I shoved a heaping bite of sky-blue mystery fruit into my mouth in an effort to hide my embarrassment. The fruit was sour with a surprisingly nutty aftertaste.
“You don’t have to look so petrified,” Ary said. “Trust me, it wouldn’t take more than a nudge.”
“I’m…” I swallowed and tried again. “I appreciate the offer, really, but…”
“Say no more. I won’t push it.” I could tell she was disappointed—and that it took a great amount of effort on her part not to press the issue—but she let it drop.
And I quickly took the opportunity to change the subject.
“Do you know how he and Talon know each other?” I asked.
She brightened again immediately. “Talon said they grew up together,” she said. “Talon knew him before he was the Lion Warrior, so even when Oak disappeared and people claimed he’d abandoned Therador, Talon never lost hope. He knew his friend and hero would return someday.” She grabbed what looked like a shiny orange grape from the bowl of fruit and popped it in her mouth. “I only joined his crew a couple of years ago. They wouldn’t take me before I turned seventeen.”
“What exactlyisthis crew?” I asked, looking around the room. It was a rather ragtag group of people—both men and women, ranging in age, build, and pretty much all identifying characteristics. Ary was clearly the youngest, but there were also at least two people with full heads of gray hair. Some were slender, others muscular, still others soft and round.
“We’re Talon’s crew,” she replied, as if that explained everything. She then clarified, “He likes to call us his Sentinels. Because we’ve been watching for the return of the Lion Warrior and doing our best to protect Therador in his place.”
That reminded me of something she’d said earlier that still confused me. “You knew Octavian—Oak—had returned. How?” I was assuming she and the others hadn’t just been wandering the streets, hoping one of them would bump into him.
“Because everything pointed to it,” she said. “Talon has been collecting every prophecy, divination, and legend he could find about the Lion Warrior foryears.Anything that might be a clue to where he went or when he might return. And one thing kept coming up again and again—that Therador’s great hero would return when this world needed him most, when the Circle was fractured and the beasts followed the moons across the sky.”
That sounded ominous, even though I only understood bits of it.
“There have been rumors about the Circle for months,” she said. “Talon assumed the part about thebeastsreferred to the Mythic Ones, of course, but when we heard about the reports of roving monsters in this region—basilisks coming down from the mountains and such—some of us hoped that was the sign we’d been waiting for. And we were right.” She gazed down the table at Octavian, her eyes full of affectionate reverence. I was pretty sure I’d worn that exact same expression more than a few times during a couple of years in my late teens when I’d been embarrassingly obsessed with a K-pop band.
Octavian glanced up, as if sensing our attention, and his azure eyes met mine, setting off a fresh round of warm flutterings inside me. I quickly looked away again.
